


Familiarity

by Empress_Of_Edenia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Day 1: Lost/Found, Friendship, Gen, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith Family Week 2018, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post S6, Pre S7, themes of found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 21:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16354814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empress_Of_Edenia/pseuds/Empress_Of_Edenia
Summary: It's been a few weeks, perhaps a month, since Team Voltron has had a chance to stop and rest on their journey to Earth. Keith is back for good, but he's returned to a family wounded by their greatest loss yet. Of all the relationships that need mending, Keith never expected to start with the team's newest member.





	Familiarity

Keith noticed Romelle looking at him for the umpteenth time that morning. He knew he was going to have to say something to her sooner or later.

The old Keith would’ve snapped at her for doing it. Had she joined Team Voltron any earlier than she did, his younger self probably would’ve narrowed his eyes in her direction, his crossed arms tight and protective over his chest. Then would come the inevitable “what?” from his mouth, barked rather than asked.

Stranded on a planet with just their Lions to protect and house them, Keith had plenty of reason to resort back to those old ways. But he couldn’t find it in himself to blow up over something so minor right now. Wherever that familiar anger had gone, he couldn’t grab hold of it.

“What’s the matter?” Keith asked her instead. Perhaps his voice was too soft since she didn’t look at him immediately. Given his self-imposed voice rest after his battle with Kuron, Keith might have muttered the question rather than asked it outright.

He cleared his throat and Romelle’s ears perked up.  She’d gotten lost in thought after stealing another glance at Keith and turning her attention elsewhere. “Hm?” 

“You were staring at me, again,” Keith said.  


“Again?” Romelle blinked a few times until the realization hit her. Her ears sagged low on either side of her head and she fiddled with one of her long ponytails. “O-oh, I am sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.” She looked like she wanted to add to that apology, but she went quiet.  


“It’s okay.” Keith struggled to push her for any further information without being blunt about it. It looked like whatever her deal was, the subject was sensitive and sore. Maybe as sore as everyone else was as of late. He wondered if it was best to just leave it there. 

Romelle certainly wasn’t going to bring it up herself. Not after everyone had told her the best course of action was to move on. He was sad to say that he’d contributed to that mindset.  


They were just sitting there at the moment, though. Pidge did her best to keep in contact with their coalition allies. But until they could figure out exactly where they were going, there was going to be a lot of time spent on these odd, sometimes desolate planets that Team Voltron knew next to nothing about. Even Coran, whose knowledge of the universe was more extensive than anyone else Keith knew, couldn’t recognize the place they landed on last night. If there was a time to talk about these things, now would be a damn good start.  


Keith heard Romelle mumbling under her breath as they sat around the empty fire pit. He could hardly hear her, but he picked up something along the lines of, “so much like him…”  


“If you have something to say, then say it,” he said, not unkindly. “It’s just us, Romelle.” 

She looked up from her lap. Her teeth chewed into the meat of her bottom lip, but once she started talking she couldn’t stop. “Every time that I look at you, or watch you do anything at all… I cannot help but think of Bandor.”  


Keith had nothing to say to that. Really, who would have been able to keep up normal conversation after having such a bomb dropped on them? He regretted even acknowledging her in the first place. It looked like some things never change, including his ability to make things worse.  


Any relief on Romelle’s face withered into a sadder smile as she traveled back into her memories. “I think what the two of you share most is your stubbornness. Nothing could stop him when his mind was made up.”  


Keith shuddered to think that there was once a man as hard headed as he was. Did Bandor also dive into wildfires to save people? Did Romelle ever have to get on Bandor’s case for sailing off of a cliff on a vehicle going at one-hundred miles per hour, just because he felt like it? Hard to picture, going off of what she told Keith about the Altean colony and what little Lotor allowed them to have.  


Romelle continued in his silence. “A close friend of mine was drowning in Lotor’s Sacred Springs. None of us thought that she would make it, until Bandor jumped in. He had no fear whatsoever.”  


All Romelle had to do was mention a rescue of some kind, any kind and Keith saw it; the image of Bandor, so young and yet able to pull an able-bodied person out of the water with that infamous Altean strength, fading until it changed into someone he knew. At first Keith thought he was just remembering Shiro, mid-rescue from some mission they completed in their early paladin days. But as the figure got closer, there was no mistaking who it was.  


“Sounds familiar…” Keith muttered. “Really, really familiar.”  


“It does?” Romelle asked.  


“I, um…” Keith tried to find a way out of this, but he’d backed himself into a corner.  


“In what way? If you don’t mind my asking,” Romelle said, clearly not trying to force the answers out of him. She did, however, lean a bit closer to him afterward. Any drop of information was juicy enough for her, it seemed.  


“Your brother sounds like my dad.” Keith didn’t realize he’d said it right away, but it slipped out of his mouth regardless. Once he picked up on what he blurted out, though, it were as if Keith had exposed himself and there was nothing in the universe that could shield him.  


“Oh.” Romelle’s eyes widened as the realization sunk in for her, too. She gave him a bit of space, but studied Keith for a moment. “What was he like?” she asked after a while.  


Keith blinked at her, momentarily thrown by the question. It took him a minute to shake the wry collection of old memories to respond. “Who?”  


“Your father,” Romelle said. There was a bit of of curious concern in her gaze, as if his sudden distance had confused her.  


Keith looked away, then. He unsheathed his mom’s blade and squeezed his hands around it for moral support as he recanted. Again, he found himself going against what the younger, much colder Keith would’ve done. He didn’t shut the question down or treat Romelle with suspicion for digging into the past like this.  


“I… don’t really remember much. I was a little kid when he died and he was usually gone, most of the time.” He inhaled, then exhaled. “Firefighters don’t have the most open schedule. They can travel for months before they come home.”  


“But what is a firefighter?” Romelle asked.  


Keith looked at her and found childlike wonder replacing her concern. Something about it was endearing. He couldn’t help but think of another Altean he was close to when he saw her looking at him like that. His lips quirked up the tiniest bit. “On Earth, the elements can be wild and unpredictable. Its people even moreso. Firefighters are public servants who risk their lives for those that can’t help themselves.”  


Romelle retreated within herself. Her lips curled in reminiscence of memories that were warm, but also painful. “It sounds like the kind of thing that Bandor would do.” 

“Bandor was one brave kid, then,” Keith said.  


“Brave, yes. But he was also naive,” Romelle added. Her voice hardened, and it reminded Keith of crystalline Balmera gems. “I suppose we all were, myself included. We Alteans used to be a race known for our strength and diplomacy… or so Coran tells me. But there was never anything like that in the people that I grew up surrounded by.” It was her turn to pause. “Much like your princess, I fear that I long for an Altea that was lost decaphoebes ago. And after all this…”  


Keith waited patiently for her to follow up with something else, but she trailed off there. Still, he had a feeling he knew what was on her mind concerning that last part. After all of this, after all of these painful truths come to light, her family dead and the only home she ever knew unsafe territory for her, what was left? 

He was similar, in a way. Nothing left for him on any existing planet, outside of his work with Team Voltron. With the chaos of their daily lives serving as distraction, it was easy to run away and neglect answering such an enormous question. For Keith, the solution would probably be what it always was. To keep running, to keep searching and going wherever he felt it was right to go. But for someone who’d never known that nomadic life, well…  


“S-sorry,” she apologized again. “This is hardly conversation if I keep drifting away on you.” 

“Don’t worry about it. Silence is fine, sometimes,” he said. Silence was needed in moments like these, Keith found. It was the mediator between easy words and difficult points that he had trouble reaching on his own. And so he would give her all of the silence she needed until she was ready to speak once more.  


When Romelle was ready, she brought up another memory. “I remember a time when…” Her voice left her as her eyes lit up with nostalgia, then returned. “It was when we were both so young and infinitely more naive. Bandor declared he’d be the first to climb to the very top of Lotor’s monument.”  


Keith’s lips curled into a wry smile. “That goes against Lotor’s Will, doesn’t it?”  


“He assured me that making it to very top of Lotor’s head was him ‘showing how far he’d go to serve his will.’ We both knew it was just an excuse,” Romelle said, smile wearing down into something more tired.  


“Did he actually do it?” Keith propped his elbows on his knees, chin in one hand. 

Romelle shook her head. “No. He fell to the ground as soon as he reached Lotor’s shoulder. It nearly scared the death out of me and I swear he landed right on his head, but he ended up breaking his arm instead. Bandor was much more behaved, after that.”  


Keith felt a bit bad for smirking at Bandor’s expense. But not too bad, as Romelle was soon to follow. They were both grinning like fools over something that happened so long ago. He tried to recount what few fragments of his memories he could for her, though they were mostly about his dad’s missions and any work antics he would tell Keith as ‘bedtime stories.’  


“Fighting fires sounds about as fun as paladin adventures,” Romelle admitted. “It makes anything my brother would do pale in comparison.” 

“To be honest with you, I’m not sure how many of them are true.” But Keith liked to believe that a majority of them were. They were all he had.  


Romelle looked at him in a thoughtful way. “We can say that they are for now.”  


He hadn’t expected that out of her, given how straightforward she’d been with everyone since he and his mom had found the colony. Keith appreciated it. There was a weird sort of comfort in letting those foggy truths take on a life of their own and not interfering with them.  


Keith sensed another story coming on, either from her or himself, when the sound of Lance’s voice interrupted their down time.  


“Hey, you guys!” Lance cried out. “We could use your help over here!” 

“On our way,” Keith called back.  


As he rose to his feet, ready to fall right back into his protective facade, Keith felt Romelle reach out a hand for him, but she recoiled it when he looked over his shoulder at her.  


“Thank you for listening to… whatever all of this was,” she said. Her face was no longer creased with stress and worry lines, as it had been when they first landed on these uncharted alien plains. She looked much more at peace, now.  


It was odd, to be in part responsible for improving someone’s mood. But he was glad that they’d had this talk, as well. It motivated him to put his all into helping Lance and Shiro gather any flammable material they could find in their current surroundings. When he inevitably looked for her, he saw that Romelle was also working hard on their survival-centric chores.  


Lance had a smirk on his face. “Didn’t think you moved that fast. Or at all.”  


“Shut up,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like that.”  


“Easy, man. I was just kidding. She’s _way_ out of your league, anyway,” Lance said with a shake of his head.  


“We can banter over who Keith is interested in later. Let’s get this stuff back to our campsite, for now,” Shiro said, gathering up his share of the material with his only arm.  


Keith almost said something, but let them think what they wanted to think and got on with the task at hand. Although not in the way they were construing it, something had definitely happened back there. Maybe Romelle felt that change happen, too. Maybe not. Keith could only hope that they would have more talks like those. He hoped that one day, she would also consider herself to be part of this little misfit “family.”  


And Keith would be the first one to welcome her into it.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to give thanks to my regular beta, K-Lionheart, as well as Parisa/stellar-parallax for cleaning up some glaring flaws.


End file.
